re and over the low hill
on our right the tops of masts; but when the vessel had entered through
a narrow passage between the moles extending from either side, and had
anchored in the centre of the well protected and commodious harbor of
Piraeus, we gazed on a scene of animation and activity. The bay was
filled with shipping and the shore lined with warehouses where the
stevedores were already busily engaged in lading or discharging cargoes.
On each side of the Moltke, little more than a stone's throw away, lay
gray battleships, cruisers, torpedo boats, destroyers, and other naval
craft.

"What war vessels are those?" was the question asked eagerly by many
passengers.

"The white flag with the blue St. Andrew's cross floating over that
warship is the Russian national emblem," patiently replied one of the
officers of our steamer, "and so I conclude that these vessels compose
the Russian Mediterranean squadron."

A band on the flagship began to play and the Russian sailors in clean
white suits were seen forming in lines on the decks of the vessels,
evidently for inspection or morning roll-call. On the rigging above the
sailors' heads, swaying in the breeze, were hundreds of white suits,
washed and hung out to dry.

[Illustration: HUNDREDS OF WHITE SUITS HUNG OUT TO DRY.]

Soon fifty or more large row boats were plying around our steamer in
readiness to convey us to the railroad station at the upper end of the
harbor about a mile away. As we approached the shore in these boats we
saw on the wharf at Piraeus a motley crowd of dirty-handed, bare-footed,
ill-clothed men and boys. It seemed as if all the idle and vagabond
population of the city had assembled to lounge lazily in the sun,
hoping, perhaps, to obtain some small coins from the tourists during
the transfer from boat to cars. If this was their hope they were
disappointed. All arrangements for the welfare of the Moltke tourists
had been carefully made in advance, and, as there was no baggage to be
carried, the services of the dirty-handed men were not required.

"Are these vagabonds and tramps the descendants of the noble Greeks whom
we have honored all our lives?" sadly remarked a minister in our boat.
"Can these be the offspring of the great orators who electrified their
hearers, or of the famous architects and artists whose names are
immortal? Are these swarthy-faced, plain-featured idlers the
representatives of the Greek beauty of form and feature?"

[Ill